Retro low-poly sensibilities ooze from the seams of Pseudoregalia as you fly across the dungeon's dreamy landscape. A certain nostalgia permeates the entire bite-sized playtime, calling back to the cozy and creative weirdness of N64 era platformers in the vein of Glover.
Pseudoregalia is the epitome of mechanics first; story is a vague suggestion here. Movement is fluid, all about freedom of expression, and consistently feels better as you grab more upgrades. The level design also heavily encourages intentional sequence breaking, while always letting you feel clever for enacting it. Combat isn't a nuisance, but it's just a visual flourish at best; it really has no reason to exist here outside of a single upgrade to gain more air and the two bosses (tutorial + endgame) the game throws at you.
Lengthwise, it never overstays its welcome, but there does come a point where traversing feels a little too time consuming to backtrack for any missed power-ups, even with the full toolkit and speed that comes with. I played with the map update, and could imagine the frustration if I hadn't, as it's a difficult game to mentally map out. For $5, it's absolutely worth your time, as the fluidity of the movement mechanics, aesthetic, and overall gamefeel are really satisfying, and it knows when to take a bow. Will be following the dev, as they clearly have a great grasp on good game design that can only improve.
Pseudoregalia is the epitome of mechanics first; story is a vague suggestion here. Movement is fluid, all about freedom of expression, and consistently feels better as you grab more upgrades. The level design also heavily encourages intentional sequence breaking, while always letting you feel clever for enacting it. Combat isn't a nuisance, but it's just a visual flourish at best; it really has no reason to exist here outside of a single upgrade to gain more air and the two bosses (tutorial + endgame) the game throws at you.
Lengthwise, it never overstays its welcome, but there does come a point where traversing feels a little too time consuming to backtrack for any missed power-ups, even with the full toolkit and speed that comes with. I played with the map update, and could imagine the frustration if I hadn't, as it's a difficult game to mentally map out. For $5, it's absolutely worth your time, as the fluidity of the movement mechanics, aesthetic, and overall gamefeel are really satisfying, and it knows when to take a bow. Will be following the dev, as they clearly have a great grasp on good game design that can only improve.